Auto Design

The two-seater spider/roadster by Pininfarina

In addition to the all-new Alfa Romeo Giulietta, designed in house, there will be at least two more Alfa Romeo dream-cars to look and scrutinize at the Geneva Motor Show opening early this March.

They will be:

· The two-seater spider/roadster by Pininfarina; and

· The dramatic high performance V8, 2+2, coupé from Bertone (not a new generation BAT).

The two Alfa Romeo dream-cars are proposed by the Italian coachbuilders as their own contribution to the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Alfa Romeo and to enhance the role of the Italian coachbuilders in creating the Alfa Romeo myth, as well as to visualize what the future might bring to the brand.

It is not by chance that Pininfarina is designing a light and nimble two-seater spyder along the tradition of their love-affair with Alfa Romeo. The same goes true for Bertone who in the past has created masterpieces such as the Alfa Romeo Sprint, Montreal, Carabo and, lately the Alfa Romeo GT.

However, at the moment, there are no plans, of any sort, to take these dream-cars to the reality of a regular production run. It will all be up to Sergio Marchionne decide what to do with them. Will he decide to convince his shareholders to invest serious money in the revitilization of Alfa Romeo? Or will it sell the famous brand to VW or any other qualified pretender?

The love-hate relation between Fiat and the Italian coachbuilders has rarely been even.

The giant Fiat has always plaied the role of the big fish who lives on the small fishes and indeed the recent troubles met by Bertone and Pininfarina would have not be as big if only Fiat had done his part with the due fairness. Bertone invested and developed on its own the design of the successful GT, their goal being that of being commissioned the production. Fiat did not allow it but wanted to build the cars at their own plant in Pomigliano.

In the case of the Alfa Romeo GT and Spider, Fiat refused to invest into the engineering and production tools and left Pininfarina on its own to finance (at a huge loss) the production of both Alfa Romeo sportcars.

Italdesign did their part too. They designed the extremely successful Fiat Punto on their own budget and presented the job as a gift, only to ensure themselves the contract for the production engineering. Today, the choice of Italdesign-Giugiaro not to invest into a dream-car for Alfa Romeo suggests the famous designer is betting his cards on other partners which have a stronger sense of gratitute, fairness and acumen in choosing their partners.

The notion that Alfa Romeo could live a brilliant and better new life under the ownership of a group like Volkwagen has been recently debated by the Italian press, after the Corriere della Sera (the authoritative newspaper co-owned by Fiat) ran a comment on the merit of saving Alfa Romeo by selling it.

The commentary in Corriere della Sera is very significant. Experience shows that long before acquiring the Alfa Romeo brand, Fiat regularly used the press as a strategic tool to pave the way to the acceptance of very unpopular choices. This is a strong indication that the final decision is only waiting for the last details, and the right time, to be announced.